FLORIDA COTTON RAT SOUTHWEST FLORIDA LEE COUNTY

THE FLORIDA COTTON RAT

The Florida Cotton Rat inhabits most of the southern United States, including most of Florida.  This rat is also known at the Hispid Cotton Rat.  The Florida Cotton Rat prefers to live in dense covered grassy fields, overgrown roadsides, or fencerow vegetation adjacent to cultivated fields.  They also occupy meadows, marshy areas, cactus patches, and weedy ditch banks.  Under the protective cover, the Florida Cotton Rat will have well-defined runways radiating in all direction from the nest site.

This rat is a moderately large, robust rodent with a scaly, sparsely haired tail that is shorter than the combined head and body.  They have relatively large eyes.  The ears are large but almost hidden in the fur.  Distinguishing characteristic is the rough grizzled appearance of the blackish or grayish fur and the rather stiff black guard hairs.  They average 10 inches long including the tail length of 4 inches.  They may be identified as a Norway rat but are smaller in size.

The Florida Cotton Rats are normally herbivores, eating the roots, stems, leaves, and seeds of a wide variety of plants, fruits, berries and nuts.  Cotton rats will cut tall plants off at the base and continue to cut them into shorter sections.  They will also eat insects, the eggs and young of ground-nesting birds and carcasses of dead animals.

These rats are basically nocturnal but will venture out in the daytime and are active year-round.  They do not store food or hibernate.  They are excitable, pugnacious, and aggressive toward mice living in the same fields.  Their nests are a crude mass of dry grass fibers stripped from larger plant stems, placed in shallow surfaces depression, among clumps of coarse grasses, underground in shallow tunnels, or under rocks or logs.  They seldom inter homes or structures.

Don't let unwanted creatures disrupt your Southwest Florida lifestyle.  Call, 239-455-4300, Collier Pest Control for a full explanation on any of our services, or look us up on our web site at collierpestcontrol.com, Remember Florida does not have to be shared with pests.

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